the end and the myth

The End and the Myth is an artist book, as well as an edition of collages and photographs originally commissioned by RedLine Contemporary Art Center for Re/Call at the Rocky Mountain Land Library on Labor Day, 2018. The Rocky Mountain Land Library is located in Garo, Colorado on the high basin of South Park.  The land around the library was formerly inhabited by Utes, who used the area as buffalo hunting grounds before the encroachment of white settlers.  “The last of the wild buffalo were shot in Lost Park, an isolated valley which runs out of South Park in its northeast corner,” according to a history of the area (Bayou Saladoby Virginia McConnell).  Gold was discovered in South Park in 1859.  The area was connected to Denver by railroad in 1879.

The project is a meditation on the ways that history and the mythologies of the past are embedded in the landscape. It consists of 82 collages combining: original photography by Sayler / Morris of the landscape and town near The Rocky Mountain Land Library; archival images taken entirely from the 27-volume Time/Life series collectively titled The Old West; the leatherette casing from the last volume of that series titled The End and the Myth; and text taken from a 19thCentury travel book containing a description of the area titled Beyond the West.  All the pages of the Time/Life book The End and the Mythwere removed.  We then put our collages and photographs between the original casing, replaced the cover image with one of our own and re-stitched the binding.